Creating Africa in America. Jacqueline Copeland-Carson
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The study’s participatory research approach was complicated and enriched in unexpected ways by the fact that I was also a “native anthropologist.” Although, in keeping with current anthropological practice, I was aware of the sociopolitically contingent nature of ethnography, I did not begin the study by defining or problematizing my role as a “native ethnographer.” However, once the fieldwork began, the CWC’s interest in building a shared sense of African identity to embrace the diversity of the Twin Cities’ African peoples, combined with the research’s participatory nature, quickly highlighted my position as a native ethnographer. I was not only a member of the culture being studied but I was also a participant in various other professional and academic networks and cultures, several of which overlapped with the CWC’s work. Many of the features of my life—being an educated African American female with complex personal, academic, and professional experiences in the African diaspora; being a native Philadel-phian and a relative newcomer to the Twin Cities struggling to establish this place as “home”; being a mother and wife balancing family and career; being a former foundation executive and community development program evaluator—were in many ways reflected in the struggles, debates, and triumphs of the diverse people and institutions that used and supported the CWC.
Like any ethnographer, I recognized that as cultural creatures, we all have perspectives drawn from our personal lives—academic and professional experiences that color our ability to fully represent the diverse views and dynamism of the participants of the cultures we study. The quality of our work is largely influenced by our ability to keep distinct the perspectives of the “insider” and “outsider” and make systematic, self-conscious, and documented efforts to understand how these points of view mutually influence each other in the research process. Throughout my fieldwork, analysis, and writing, I made explicit attempts to understand and document how my own cultural, political, and other perspectives influenced the research design and findings. My primary strategy for accomplishing this was to include in the research as diverse a representation of African diasporan constituents as possible, and to make explicit in the narrative my personal perceptions, how I attempted to control for them, and how these efforts influenced the research context, wherever relevant. For me, the participatory fieldwork context required that I explicitly recognize my multiple sociopolitical roles—including that of a native ethnographer—and practice, at some level, what is now called reflexive ethnography (see Clifford 1988). My hope was that the inclusion of a diversity of perspectives as well as explicit inclusion of myself in my roles as both participant and observer deepened my analysis of CWC efforts to create African community, while avoiding the kind of self-centered, personal diary type of ethnography that sometimes characterizes reflexive ethnographic approaches.
Part II
Across Diasporan Space/Time: Who Is “African” in a Global Ecumene?
African Americans’ ancestry is African whether they like it, know it, or recognize it or not. Culture has to do with ancestry—blood origins—not nationality—that’s where you happen to be living.
—Akin, a “continental African” and Yorùbá man born in Nigeria, active CWC participant and leader
Some people are really into the African stuff and because their ancestors are African, they say that “Africa is my home”—even though they might be from the southside of Chicago … My ancestors are African, but Africa is not my home. I’m American too—a black American—and I want my due here.
—Mavis, an “African American” and active CWC participant
3
“Three Parts African”: Blood, Heart, Skin, and Memory
The CWC’s “African born in America” leadership, in other words, African Americans, had a three-part definition of who was African. According to a key CWC “African” leader who was a locally well-known African American activist, an African was a person who was “black in skin color or race; has an ancestry that ties them to the continent of Africa; and has an African spiritual identity, meaning that you identify with the intellectual tradition that you are part of creation. Do you view the world as interconnected, or do you have an objective, technological view of the world? Who was African cannot be defined by one of these traits in isolation from the others. “It’s a matter of a both and—not an either or.”1
At the most fundamental level, in the CWC’s three-part framework, an “African” was anyone who was “Black.” “Blackness” and “Africanness” were often used interchangeably, although they were not necessarily synonymous. From the perspective of the CWC leadership, if one was “Black,”2 one was also “African,” regardless of whether a person self-identified and/or self-described an African heritage as a primary and defining component of his or her ancestry or identity. In the words of an African American CWC leader, “Either you’re born African, or you are not.”3 Here the notion of “Blackness” was more than just phenotypical features, particularly skin color. “Blackness” also included a sense of cultural principles and memory which happened to be manifested, in part, through skin color. For example, Nefertiti, the African Soul Movement (dance) teacher, who was also a very active CWC participant, explained to me that “Africans in America were taken from the land. Continental Africans had the land taken from them. Until we can take the land back, our grounding as Africans is in our way of thinking, our history, our symbols, our principles. If we want to be whole, it can’t be about geography. Although I was not born there [in Africa], there are things that I do that are African and it has to be counted—I keep them through the vibrations of skin and memory.”4
For many African American CWC participants who defined themselves as “Africans born in America,” an African cultural memory was retained in the body through the skin. This sort of skin-absorbed, retained memory—not skin color alone—constituted “Blackness.”
The CWC had an ongoing class called Old Ways of Parenting for Young African American Parents. The class functioned like a support group and was facilitated by a key CWC “African born in America” leader. The topic for one session was a discussion and analysis of the ways that mothers, grandmothers, or other senior women in their families influenced the participants’ parenting styles. A friendly debate developed around whether certain parenting practices were “genetic” or “genealogical”—inherited through biology, or learned from observing the practices of one’s mothers and grandmothers. Someone in the class, a regular and active participant, mentioned that the discussion represented the classic nature/nurture debate. Several of the women maintained that most behavioral traits, including “memory, talent, mental/psychological disorders, spirit, attitude, stress, and mannerisms” were genetic—according to one participant—“inherited through the skin.”5
Despite the inclusion of “Blackness,” partially indicated by skin color, as a component of Africanness, the CWC leadership’s theory of African identity was not easily explained as exclusively biological or racial. In fact, several CWC “African born in America” participants were very adamant and vocal about their rejection of the term “black” as a racial category. For example, Sandra, an “African born in America” who was in her forties, explained it this way:
I’ve gotten to the point where I’m not offended by the term “Black.” I like Black, actually, because I went through this whole, “I’m Black and I’m proud” thing. So, I actually like Black, but I’m trying to teach my children “African” because there are so many negative things—even though their dad says “Black”—I just want them to know that there are so many negative things that are out there in the media connected with the word “Black,” that they hopefully don’t internalize the negative affects that come from that. I think those things were put there on purpose to denigrate us … I just think that the reality is, in a global sense, that Africans still refer to ourselves as being Black. So I think in that sense it’s OK … I view myself as Black. I’m not so sensitive about it. There was a time when I was kind of more with the African, but